Sunflowers in the Concrete: Black Flags and Windmills reviewed on Center for a Stateless Society

Four
years ago, anarchist activist and co-founder of the radical
humanitarian aid organization Common Ground Relief (formerly the Common
Ground Collective) scott crow released his memoir about the nearly three
months where he and a band of activists and New Orleans residents beat
the odds – and the Feds – in the aftermath of Hurricane Katrina.

C4SS’s Kevin Carson penned a glowing review of Black Flags and Windmills in
2011, writing, “As someone who’s followed the Arab Spring and Occupy
movements very closely, I find Crow’s account of organizing the Common
Ground Collective extremely relevant to the problems the movement faces
today.”

Last August, crow released the second edition of Windmills,
which includes a collection of emails, interviews and a photo diary of
sorts that documents his trajectory as an activist from young,
state-loving communist to the incredible “puppetmaster” of an anarchist
(according to the FBI) that he is today, as well as moments from his
time on the ground in New Orleans.

This new information, which
adds roughly 100 pages of material to the book, is incredibly
illustrative and should be of interest for any activist or aid worker
looking to create a horizontal, decentralized and anti-authoritarian
movement in their communities – whether they’re affected by natural
disasters or simply the long, slow disaster wrought by state capitalism.

Besides
that, there’s not a whole lot of difference from the first to the
second editions; crow’s narrative flows roughly the same in both copies
of the book, and Carson has already done a great job of summarizing that
first edition in his own review from 2011. So rather than rehash what
Kevin said, and you should really go back and read that review because
it’s fantastic, here instead are some impressions the book left on me as
a younger self-described anarchist.1. It’s never just about one person. It’s about the people.

crow
has received a lot of notoriety (and rightly so, in my opinion) in the
years after Katrina for being one of the sort-of public faces of Common
Ground; in between organizing in his hometown of Austin, Texas, he goes
on speaking tours to college campuses, infoshops and independent venue
spaces around the United States to talk about the foundational
principles he, Malik Rahim and Sharon Johnson started Common Ground on,
as well as the concept of “emergency hearts.” I’ve had the pleasure of
seeing him in Oklahoma twice now.

That being said, crow makes it clear toward the end of his narrative in Windmills
that while he, Malik and Sharon put a whole heap of work into what
Common Ground stood for and what it was doing for the community, they
were not the sole people we should focus on when we talk about the
success of the organization. Hundreds upon hundreds of local residents
and out-of-state activists made Common Ground what it was, and without
them – not to mention the support of Algiers and the surrounding rural
and urban communities they served – the effort would have sputtered out.

Ultimately,
the narrative crow creates – and lived – is not one about a rockstar
anarchist swooping into New Orleans and rescuing the flooded poor
communities in the Lower Seventh and Ninth Wards from the wrecking ball
of the State, but one where the communities themselves rose up against
outside pressure – from crooked, killer cops, vigilantes, overly
bureaucratic federal relief organizations and the military – to save
their homes, schools and neighborhoods, Zapatista-style.

2. When the State gets injured is when it shows its claws the most.

Arguably,
the aftermath of Hurricane Katrina and its sister storm, Hurricane
Rita, showed exquisitely what the State will do and how it will respond
when it has been dealt a truly damaging blow. crow captured the stark
realities of the days and weeks post-Katrina in Windmills,
pulling no punches and telling the whole story: the white vigilantes,
the shoot-to-kill orders, the mainstream relief agencies delivering
nothing but baby wipes and plastic cutlery to Algiers when food and
water was needed, FEMA employees getting “the best medical treatment”
they had ever seen in New Orleans at the Common Ground Clinic. One scene
in particular was especially striking. Rather than paraphrase, I’ll let
crow do the talking:

Early one afternoon, I drove a truck over
to St. Mary’s to drop off our regular supply load. Their volunteers
helped with unloading, and I was set to leave, when I realized the truck
was blocked in by a Humvee full of young-looking soldiers. I stepped
out and cordially asked the driver to move forward so I could back out.
The vehicle didn’t move. The driver stared through me without moving or
acknowledging I had spoken to him.

Then the blank stare changed
to a disturbing facial expression I had seen on many faces recently. I
thought, “Is he going to shoot me?” Suddenly, a ranking officer stepped
off the curb to the driver’s side, barking at their car, “Soldier, this
is not Iraq! We do not control the streets! These are American
civilians! Now move your ass — immediately!” Instantly, the driver
turned and the vehicle moved. The officer waved me on. Stunned, I drove
away. That shell-shocked look was in the faces of many of the young
soldiers who were cycling through, fresh from Afghanistan and Iraq to
the hell in their own backyards.

While there are arguably more
intense scenes peppered throughout the book, this particular scene hit
me with the force of weeks of exhaustion and the knowledge – the
certitude – that at any moment crow or any other activist working in
Algiers could be shot and killed by any number of government officials,
soldiers, cops or yahoos with a gun and a penchant for Klan kosplay.
Despite this, the people who made up Common Ground still showed up and
helped the work along in defiance of an injured and feral State.

3. Building counterpower works.

Perhaps the biggest point I took from Windmills
is that, regardless of whether the Common Ground Collective can be
considered “pure anarchism,” or how messy the organization’s internal
framework was, or what it eventually turned into, it is still a pretty
dang great model for how we can build institutions of counterpower that
can actively oppose the State. We don’t have to wait for a revolution,
or a natural disaster, or for the bus driver to walk off the bus, to
start building. We know this model works – it worked for Occupy Sandy,
and to a lesser degree, the radical cleanup efforts in Moore, OK after
the May 31, 2013 F5 tornado. The principles it employs can be used in a
variety of settings and are even adoptable as a personal, individual
framework.

As poet June Jordan, quoted by crow in Windmills,
wrote in her 1978 “Poem for South African Women,” we are the ones we’ve
been waiting for. crow’s book shows how ordinary people can create
something more effective and more vital for their own communities than
any outside force, be it the State, corporations or mainstream relief
organizations, and we can do so without waiting for anyone’s approval.

Ultimately, Windmills
left me with a sense of hope and excitement for an anarchist future.
It’s not a future that will come easily, as crow demonstrates, and as
the old cliche goes, I may not see it in my lifetime – none of us may!
But damn if you won’t see me running to meet it.